Yu-Gi-Oh! TCGPlayer State Championships: Vermont! First Place Report.

My adventure in Vermont started last Monday when my friend Jerry messaged me and told me about the event. I decided to look into it and decided I wanted to go but I had no one to go with. Luckily my friend Trevor was free this weekend and drove up to Saratoga from Catskill in order to carpool.

During the week my original intent was to play Evilswarm since I had nothing else to play. After talking deck ideas with my friend Brian who wasn’t in attendance, I came to the conclusion that Evilswarm just wouldn’t cut it. The following day I was looking through my cards to come up with something to play and I came across some Traptrix cards and thought to myself “Hmm, I’ve never played H.A.T. before and that seems to be a logical choice for an event with the new rules”. The problem with running H.A.T. was that I didn’t have any artifacts, I was missing parts of the extra deck, and I didn’t have any Ice Hands. After talking about the idea with Trevor he mentioned he had everything I needed and that he wasn’t planning on using them, so he let me borrow them for the event.

I didn’t get much play testing in before the event except for a couple games with my friend Noah on Dueling Network, using proxies to help teach my fiancé; Rachel how to play Lightsworns, one game with my buddy Travis, and one practice match with Trevor before bed.

Now for the day of the event. Trevor and I work up and punched in the directions to Burlington and we were off. Some of the highlights of the ride there was Dunkin Doughnuts for breakfast, no traffic allowing us to get there in a timely manner, beautiful sights, and of course no road trip would be complete without singing along to I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) by The Proclaimers on repeat for an hour! When we arrived in Burlington we noticed how nice of a city it was, the town was absolutely beautiful and the people were extremely kind.

We started off by trying to find parking and ended up parking in some parking garage off the main strip, after that we had an hour before Jim’s Sports opened so we decided to get some exercise in by exploring the town. Burlington had to had have the biggest farmers market I’ve ever seen. Once the mall finally opened, we went to Jim’s to sign up for the event and we noticed that the tables weren’t setup yet so I decided I needed some comfier clothes than a long sleeve shirt and blue jeans. Our first stop was Macy’s where I found a loose fitting shirt that was perfect for what I wanted, shorts not so much. Our journey to find shorts took us through a couple stores and we ended up at this gift shop where I found a blue pair of Vermont sweats (that I later realized were womens sweats). So now that all my clothes were blue and I looked like a giant blueberry we were ready to duel!

Here is the rounds I played in for the day.

Round 1: HAT Mirror

Game One: I can’t really remember much but I remember attempting to activate two Artifact Sanctum’s in one turn. This game was really grindy but in the end I managed to gain enough advantage to subdue him.

Game Two: I netted a decent size plus thanks to Fire and Ice Hand and managed to resolve Diagusto Emeral twice allowing me to keep his field clear.

1-0

Round 2: HAT vs. Infernity

Game One: I started to needle him down and got him to 600 life points thinking I had this but the final turn he was able to gain momentum and eventually win.

Game Two: Sided in Veilers, and my Breakthrough Skills never allowed him to set up and I grinded the game out from there.

Game Three: All I remember is he didn’t hear the announcer say “45 seconds left in the round” and he soul charged back two monsters. When time was called it was in his end phase so I got the final turn so all I had to do was not allow any direct attacks the next turn and I won; I had a back row of Dimensional Prison, Traptrix Traphole Nightmare, and Wiretap, along with Traptrix Myrmello and Fire Hand set. I won from there

2-0

Round 3: HAT vs. Mecha-Phantom Beasts

Game One: I had no idea how to get around Hamstrat and it was a downhill battle from there and he took it.

Game Two: Veilers and Breakthrough Skills prevented him from doing much and I took it.

Siding for game three time was called and the T.O. didn’t want draws for the event even so we had to play game three.

Game Three: He started with a set Hamstrat and passed. Looking at my hand and seeing three traps, Veiler, and Myrmello I thought I had it. All I had to do was set up my field, he would flip up Hamstrat to start a combo to push for damage, I’d veiler it and attack over for game but he had some combo with Scramble Scramble! to push for game.

2-1

Round 4: HAT vs. Six Samurai

Game One: He started off with Shi-en and one set and I used the hands to clear his field and set up a back row that would prevent his recovery.

Game Two: It was a similar game except he also got Barkion off and had dimensional prison for my hands, luckily I was able to draw into Traptrix Dionetta to clear the board and It was all uphill from there!

3-1

Round 5: HAT vs. Lightsworn-Ruler

Game One: He bricked and it was a blow out.

Game Two: He had a good setup but I sided in Soul Release to eliminate his names and take over the game.

4-1

Top 8: HAT vs. Khat (Brett Kiroy)

I absolutely hate playing against friends because someone has to lose.

Game One/Two: it was just a back and forth battle both games and we were each 1-1 into the match.

Before we played game three; I had enough and jumped up and yelled to the T.O. if I could run to the bathroom since the match wasn’t timed, and he said yes. After that I had my focus back and wasn’t ready to just pack up and go home!

Game Three: It was also a back and forth battle but in the end Traptrix Traphole Nightmare stopped his big artifact plays and his Ignition ended up costing him the game when he had nothing to search for when I made my push for game rendering Moraltach useless.

Top 4: HAT vs. HAT (Nathan Henrichs)

Again playing friends sucks!

Game One: It was a close game but in the end I took it. (I don’t remember much as I was getting tired at this point)

Game Two: I opened five monsters out of the 15 I ran but he seemed to draw nothing but artifacts and it ended with me using Vulcasarus on a Moraltach for game.

Top 2: HAT vs. Lightsworn-Ruler (same guy as round five)

Game One: It was a quick game but I had opened two Traptrix Traphole Nightmare to counter Judgement Dragon.

Game Two: It was a longer game than any of our previous games but I ended up soul releasing him again. The game ended by him activating soul charge at 3800 life points to revive two monsters leaving him with 1800. The next turn I overlaid my Traptrix Myrmello and Fire Hand for Black Ship of Corn; detaching Traptrix Myrmello to send one monster to the graveyard leaving him with 800 life points. I finished the game by summoning Traptrix Dionetta targeting Traptrix Myrmello, he responded with D.D. Crow targeting my Myrmello but I had a set Call of The Haunted to save it from being banished, I proceeded to overlay into Gagaga Cowboy for exact game!

I was ecstatic to have won the State Championships! I won a playmat that stated “Vermont Champion” and 50 TCGPlayer points! After the tournament I took some pictures for the store, shook the hands of some people congratulating me and then Trevor and I went on our way.

We decided not to get dinner in Burlington because we weren’t terribly hungry and it was getting late. The ride home was a nice relaxing drive and we ended up getting Taco Bell when we were 20 minutes from my house (Quesarito too stronk). We got back to my house and Trevor went on his own hour and a half journey home and the day was over! It was an awesome day!

Shout outs:
Jerry Young – Informed me of the event and got me to go.
Trevor Sprague – Came along with me so the ride wouldn’t be awful.
Brian Park – Told me to not run Evilswarms.
Noah Richie – Play testing on Duel Network.
Rachel Christie – Play testing with me in person, and letting me go.
Travis Brunell – Play testing with me in person.
Brett Kiroy – A great top 8 game!
Nathan Henrichs – A great top 4 game!
Matthew Budniewski – Cheering me on every round on Facebook!
Jim’s Sports – Hosted the event.